You know me, I'm the Floyd 'nuthugger' and I hope I don't bore everyone to tears. :nut Basically, I'm posting to those who have seen the fight multiple times. To be fair and honest, I don't see the fight as so much of a robbery as I previously did upon repeated viewings. The ol' cliche says you've got to take the fight to the Champion to dethrone him and Floyd displayed his oft passivity several times during the fight. But consider: The referee was the sole judge in the fight (on a rounds basis) He scored it 9-6 Ellis with, knockdowns obviously not playing into the scoring. Floyd clearly won rounds 13-14 and Jimmy's last ditch shot in the 15th hurt Floyd, tho he wasn't going anywhere. I'm sure Valen scored the last three 2-1 Patterson which means at the start of the 13th round, Valen had it 8-4 for Ellis. Patterson, clearly, won rounds 4 and 6. That would mean Valen scored rounds 1-2-3-5-7-8-9-10-11-12? 8-2 for Ellis? Not ONE of those for Patterson? Not one of those as even? Let's go to the 14th. After a strong 13th Floyd looked poised to regain a piece of the title. He came out aggressive, rocked Jimmy early and was on the offensive. With about a minute left (on the right side of the screen) Patterson nailed Jimmy with a lead right hand that nailed him in his tracks. They moved around and Patterson backed into the ropes (on the left side of the screen) and nailed Jimmy with an uppercut that DECKED him, tho Valen said they 'wrestled and threw each other to the canvas'. Valen said it was a 'slip'. If that was a slip, why did Jimmy arise and go to a neutral corner expecting his, somewhat obvious, 8 count?? I've got a 'screensaver' on my laptop showing both fighters immediately following the decision: Patterson, unmarked, showing his usual 'what the hell' bemused look on his face while Ellis has his hands up, blood over both his slit eyes, broken nose, puffed face, looking like a 'bloated' gargoyle of a man. Three time champion? Ali-Spinks 2? B--lS--t Floyd's effort in Stockhom was 'worlds' more impressive. My somewhat limited $0.02
Haven't time to watch it now but I watched it loads of times and it's no robbery. I#m a big, big Floyd fan but he looked like he could up the pace anytime and walk away with the decision...but he didn't. Ellis outworked him. Close but no robbery, I have at various times called it a draw or an Ellis win.
JIMMY ELLIS WPTS FLOYD PATTERSON 1: Ellis apparently had his nose broken in this round, perhaps explaining his poor performance. Very, very little to distinguish them here though, there's a huge amount of missing. Floyd's slippage means that he's not really faster than Ellis; Ellis is just as quick-handed and looks to have a similar reaction time, too. I gave this one to Ellis because I really admired the left-hand feint/right-hand lead he used, i just like that better than Patterson's "bob in". You could very arguably score this one even if you were given. 2: Lots of missing, again. It basically comes down to weighing the best punches each man lands in the round, because there's just nothing else to distinguish them - you literally have to weight the best single shots of the round. I liked Patterson's short, sharp right hand and stuck-on left-hook better than Ellis's cuffing rights and the two decent left uppercuts he lands in the opening seconds. So Patterson. 3: Strange round, but a very good one for Ellis. Patterson really isn't doing anything, he throws literally one jab. Ellis is throwing more but consistently falling short with his one-two, landing cuffing punches on the glove, or s****ing the top of Patterson's dipping head, probably taking the round on activity when the clinch and Ellis throws a square right across his man proper hypotenuses punch, think Thompson KO Price the first time, and Patterson is hurt. Ellis starts doing some really, really good work on the inside, not really his game, but it's working. But all the time he's got Angelo Dundee shouting "push him off! push him off!" he wants Ellis outside jabbing. But he's missing all his jabs. Ellis does better inside. Curious. 4: In keeping with the idiom of the fight, this is a great fight for Patterson. Ellis just goes back to missing from the outside but Patterson seems to have found his range for jabs and power punches. I love the way Patterson hooks off the jab. The jab is almost a hook and the hook is almost a jab. How awful, and at that speed. Ellis was hurt in this round and is cut above the eye. Let's see if Floyd can build some momentum. 5: Close round. I'm giving this round to Patterson on the counter uppercut he threw from the ropes at thirsty seconds remaining. Other than that, more of what we had in 1 and 2, Ellis missing, not confident, Patterson looking for the single shots. Again, Ellis's best work is inside, like the sneak left hand he lands in a neutral corner when they come together. He's bigger, Patterson is old. He should rough him up and bare down in there, not wait to be stung before he punches. 6: Patterson slips for the third time in the opening seconds. I wonder if he had better boxing boots on if he would have won? He wins this round, which is an awful round for 2:40, Ellis missing, Patterson not bothering to punch, and then Patterson comes up with the old-time trademark snaking left hook in the final seconds, a beautiful punch which fully extended cuts through the bottom jaw. Ellis saw it coming and tried to lean out, but he got caught right on the end of the punch. He was hurt but probably saved himself from a knockdown/out. Patterson does some decent work in the follow up, but it's one punch that wins him the round for some daylight. 7: The referee didn't score an even round, but I can't separate them here. Ellis is just waiting, waiting, and Patterson is bob-bob-bobbing away. I thought Ellis had stolen it with a blistering one-two at about thirty seconds, but Patterson landed a handful of less excellent punches as the round wound down. I tried to give the round to Ellis, but it didn't feel write, so I scored it for Patterson, didn't feel right, so it's an even round. 8: Very boring first half of the round. Few punches but lots of missing. Patterson lands a great jab, Ellis half-lands some weak stuff but gets in a good counter-uppercut to the body, not a lot on it but it's a decent punch. Ellis scores a decent jab on ninety seconds and another right behind it. They swap misses with the lead rights, which they shouldn't be throwing. Why aren't they jabbing more? Patterson landed a skiffing right at about 15 seconds to take an Ellis round and arguably even it up. In the end, neither one of them deserves it. 9: Ellis wins the round by dominating the inside. Probably, he'll go back to missing from the outside in the next round. 10: He did, and Patterson won a **** round with two or three right hands because of it. 11: Ellis dominates the first 100 seconds of this round, he looks the best he's looked in the fight by virtue of the fact that he's finally dialled in the right hand a bit. Patterson has been slipping it by ducking or bobbing and Ellis is going more overhand and getting somewhere with that. The problem is, Patterson comes on very very strong at the end of the round, landing good punches to the body in combination with cuffing ones to the head. I'm going to go with Ellis based upon the prior domination. This is a legitimate swing round though. Could be scored either way. 12: Clear Ellis round. He's looking dominant now and far, far busier than Floyd, who looks legitimately tired. He's throwing more, landing more, and moving Patterson about the ring. Patterson is open-mouthed. Thirteenth is big. 13: Patterson dug it out God love his heart. Ellis tried to prod his way to the frame, but Patterson just dug in and hit with him, doing the flashier, faster, harder punching, including a really cool old-school flurry to Ellis's midriff. Ellis was just static enough that some of the punches scored. IF Patterson was legitimately robbed, this is the round he was robbed in. Ellis now cannot win on my card. 14: Patterson wins this one, inarguably. He's something, Floyd Patterson. 15: Satellite cuts out, so that's that. I'll call it even. ELLIS:1,3,9,11,12, PATTERSON:2,4,5,6,10,13,14, EVEN:7,8,15 So I have it 7-5-3 Patterson. If Ellis wins the fifteenth he still doesn't win, and he received the only two rounds I scored but wasn't sure of, the first and the eleventh, so this is the best card I can produce for him.
I had it pretty clear for Floyd. My feeling when I watched it (which was a while back) was that it was at least a borderline robbery.
A better way to look at this fight is how many rounds were easy to score? About 2/3 of them. But the ref gave the close rounds to Ellis. A bad call? I think so.
I think it was a robbery (as did most of the media at the time) but one of my friends whose opinion I respect immensely thought it was an Ellis. I disagree entirely and think Floyd got cheated out of becoming a three time champion. And yeah, I think it ultimately would have been academic as Frazier would have bludgeoned Floyd (who is one of my favorite also jowcool).
No robbery and a draw, which I had it, would have been totally legit. In a fight that was Floyd's for the taking if he had ever accelerated he never did once and Jimmy fought sloppy. It was a disappointing 15 rounder that should have been more.
Good calls from all! I, basically, agree with every poster. The one poster had it either 7-5-3 or 7-6-2 Floyd and I seem to have it that way as well more often than not. I've also scored the fight several times with an (I'm gonna lean towards Ellis each round in my scoring mentality) and have Jimmy winning by roughly the same margin. Actually, Jimmy gave us back-to-back lackluster efforts in 1968. Quarry in Oakland in the early spring (remember Quarry backing against the ropes wanting Ellis to go there and play into Jerry's countering and Jimmy standing in the middle of the ring wanting Jerry to box (which he really couldn't) and play into his boxing skills. Then of course in Stockholm with minute after minute of little action and even less followup by both men. I agree, a Floyd victory may have led to an eventual Frazier fight which could have gotten ugly at some point for Floyd, but Floyd was always more suceptable to a right hand than a left hook so his style might have taken him a little deeper, depite his age, than one might expect tho not too much deeper. I always thought he may have finished a trifecta against Quarry in his first defence given the Patterson win scenerio. Lastly, no one commented on the 'knockdown' in the 14th? I still think that uppercut got home and put Jimmy down. Appreciated all comments. Great job guys! :good
Floyd was not Jimmy Ellis or a boxer type without power. He could punch. Though he was on the downside of his career, I do think he could floor and hurt Frazier. An upset is possible I'd favor Joe of course. Just saying.
I can't track it down, but I think Dundee acted or said something that indicated he knew the decision by the ref and sole judge was lucky for his fighter.
